Another of life's mild inconveniences.

Try as I might, I couldn't muster up the strength to scrabble anything here last night. An evening of shivering at Citizen's Bank Ballpark takes a lot of energy out of me. More than you'd think. Add to that being there twice in three nights and maybe you can see the sense of exhaustion setting in.

At some point during the Phils' second loss of the season, it dawned on me that I had spent $30 in two nights for nothing more than parking my car. I don't know about you, but to me thirty dollars is a nice sum of money to carry around. While I appreciate value when investing in a stock or spending money on a nice Asian massage, I can't embrace the concept of spending 30 dollars to do nothing more than find a place to keep my automobile while I spent three hours watching a baseball game.

Since the early 1970s when I started going to baseball games at Veterans Stadium, the place to park was the Holiday Inn. It's easy to get in and out, and for almost 3 decades it was my "secret" place to park. While the rest of the world was parking at the stadium lots, I was hanging at the Holiday Inn. Even though it was a longer walk, the ride out was faster, so I got home before the rabble of rowdies.

At some point a few years ago, the word got out and they started [egad] advertising. No longer did I have a nice, private place to park. Now, I had to get there early to make sure I had a space. A few times last year, the lot sold out before I could get there - which is saying something for an early-arriving geek like me. I lost my spot to popularity.

Charging for parking is one of the greater scams perpetrated on the American public. It's why I take public transportation into Philadelphia when I visit. I'll have to explore the option for my next game, but it isn't as easy to get to and from the ballpark as it is a center city pub. It requires a ride in on the PATCO Hi-Speed Line (the speed being relative) and a return trip on a crowded Broad Street Subway train crammed with drunk baseball fans just as eager to get home as they were to order that fifth beer before the 7th inning last call.

I weigh the inconvenience of waiting for the train(s) and their accompanying personal interaction against the fifteen dollars that the parking lot is scamming out of me and I find that it's a wash. The real victory would be in finding a nice on-street parking space (for free) and walking a few blocks to the ballpark. That option is as likely as finding a "one size fits all" hat that fits perfectly or a hooker who loves me for me.

The fifteen dollar parking fee has caused me to explore my options, and they aren't many, which is why I championed the cause of building the ballpark downtown - convenient to public transportation - for me.

I'll have to come up with a creative solution before my next game on April 20, or sacrifice another 15 dollars to the God of Parking. When I questioned the parking attendants, I was greeted with the generic "I just work here" response, which is neither satisfying nor accurate. If we are indeed in a challenging economic climate, raising the parking fee 5 dollars is an unquestioned screw-job.

The bigger problem is that I don't know to whom to complain. Maybe the people at the Holiday Inn Philadelphia Stadium at 900 Packer Avenue will read this in one of their Google searches? The ad says:

So if you are looking to attend a sports game, concert or any other event at one of the Philadelphia sports venues - Citizens Bank Ballpark, Lincoln Financial Field, the Comcast Spectator or the Wachovia Center- then the Holiday Inn Philadelphia Stadium is the place to spend the night!

It might be the place to spend the night, but it isn't a great place to spend three hours waiting for a baseball game to finish so you can drive home.